Testimonials

In the various roles he has undertaken through the years, Val J. Halamandaris has been a singular driving force behind the policy and program initiatives resulting in the recognition of home health care as a viable alternative to institutionalization. His dedication to consumer advocacy, which enhances the quality of life and dignity of those receiving home health care, merits VNA HealthCare Group’s highest recognition and deepest respect.

- VNA HealthCare Group

I have the highest respect for them, especially for the nurses, aides and therapists, who devote their lives to caring for people with disabilities, the infirm and dying Americans. There are few more noble professions.

- President Barack Obama

Home health care agencies do such a wonderful job in this country helping people to be able to remain at home and allowing them to receive services

Home care is a combination of compassion and efficiency. It is less expensive than institutional care...but at the same time it is a more caring, human, intimate experience, and therefore it has a greater human element...it’s a big mistake not to try to maximize it and find ways to give people the home care option over either nursing homes, hospitals or other institutions

- Former Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives Newt Gingrich (R-GA)

Medicaid covers long-term care, but only for low-income families. And Medicare only pays for care that is connected to a hospital discharge....our health care system must cover these vital services...[and] we should promote home-based care, which most people prefer, instead of the institutional care that we emphasize now.

- Former U.S. Senator Majority Leader Tom Daschle (D-CD)

We need incentives to...keep people in home health care settings...It’s dramatically less expensive than long term care.

- U.S. Senator John McCain (R-AZ)

Home care is clearly the wave of the future. It’s clearly where patients want to be cared for. I come from an ethnic family and when a member of our family is severely ill, we would never consider taking them to get institutional care. That’s true of many families for both cultural and financial reasons. If patients have a choice of where they want to be cared for, where it’s done the right way, they choose home.

- Donna Shalala, former Secretary of Health and Human Services

A couple of years ago, I spent a little bit of time with the National Association for Home Care & Hospice and its president, Val J. Halamandaris, and I was just blown away. What impressed me so much was that they talked about what they do as opposed to just the strategies of how to deal with Washington or Sacramento or Albany or whatever the case may be. Val is a fanatic about care, and it comes through in every way known to mankind. It comes through in the speakers he invites to their events; it comes through in all the stuff he shares.

- Tom Peters, author of In Search of Excellence

Val’s home care organization brings thousands of caregivers together into a dynamic organization that provides them with valuable resources and tools to be even better in their important work. He helps them build self-esteem, which leads to self-motivation.

- Mike Vance, former Dean of Disney and author of Think Out of the Box

Val is one of the greatest advocates for seniors in America. He goes beyond the call of duty every time.

Val has brought the problems, the challenges, and the opportunities out in the open for everyone to look at. He is a visionary pointing the direction for us.

- Margaret (Peg) Cushman, Professor of Nursing and former President of the Visiting Nurses Association

Although Val has chosen to stay in the background, he deserves much of the credit for what was accomplished both at the U.S. Senate Special Committee on Aging, where he was closely associated with me and at the House Select Committee on Aging, where he was Congressman Claude Pepper’s senior counsel and closest advisor. He put together more hearings on the subject of aging, wrote more reports, drafted more bills, and had more influence on the direction of events than anyone before him or since.

- Frank E. Moss, former U.S. Senator

Val’s most important contribution is pulling together all elements of home health care and being able to organize and energize the people involved in the industry.

- Frank E. Moss, former U.S. Senator

Anyone working on health care issues in Congress knows the name Val J. Halamandaris.

- Kathleen Gardner Cravedi, former Staff Director of the House Select Committee on Aging

Without your untiring support and active participation, the voices of people advocating meaningful and compassionate health care reform may not have been heard by national leaders.

All of us have been members of many organizations and NAHC is simply the best there is. NAHC aspires to excellence in every respect; its staff has been repeatedly honored as the best in Washington; the organization lives by the highest values and has demonstrated a passionate interest in the well-being of patients and providers.

- Elaine Stephens, Director of Home Care of Steward Home Care/Steward Health Systems and former NAHC C

Home care increasingly is one of the basic building blocks in the developing system of long-term care. On both economic and recuperative bases, home health care will continue to grow as an essential service for individuals, for families and for the community as a whole.

- Former U.S. Senator Olympia Snowe (R-ME)

NCOA is excited to be part of this great event and honored to have such influential award winners in the field of aging.

- National Council of Aging

Health care at home…is something we need more of, not less of. Let us make a commitment to preventive and long-term care. Let us encourage home care as an alternative to nursing homes and give folks a little help to have their parents there.

The National Association for Home Care & Hospice (NAHC) strongly opposes the Obama Administration’s proposed home health copayments and payment cuts that were included in the White House's recently released budget proposal. NAHC maintains that deficit reduction should not come in the form of a “sick tax” on the nation’s poorest, sickest, and most vulnerable individuals.

“Essential home health services are at risk,” said NAHC President Val J. Halamandaris. “Previously enacted changes will cut Medicare spending on home health services by more than $100 billion over ten years — while less than $20 billion is spent each year. As a result of these cuts, Medicare will pay home health agencies less than their costs, meaning that 56 percent of all Medicare home health agencies will be under water by 2017. Congress should therefore reject any additional cuts and any home health copay whether the reason is postponement or elimination of scheduled cuts in physician fees or deficit reduction.”

The President’s budget estimates that a home health copay would reduce Medicare spending by $830 million through 2025. “Studies have demonstrated that the opposite is true,” said Halamandaris. “A home health copay will take Medicare spending in the wrong direction – forcing patients out of high-quality, cost-effective care into much more costly care settings such as hospital, ER and assisted living-based treatment.”

The budget proposal includes a reduction each year in the Market Basket Index (inflation) updates for all post-acute providers from 2016 through 2025, including a 1.1 percentage point reduction for home health care. The proposed update cuts would reduce home health reimbursements by a total of over $15 billion. If they take effect, these payment reductions would be in addition to the rebasing of home health, home health productivity adjustments, and sequestration that lower payment rates by over 14 percent starting in 2015.

“These proposals from the President are essentially repeats from last year’s budget,” Halamandaris pointed out. “Congress refused to enact these suggestions last year and we hope for the same response to this year’s budget. Medicare reforms should never be funded by making indiscriminate across-the-board cuts to home health care or by shifting costs to our most vulnerable citizens through copays.”

The cumulative effect of billions in home health cuts has been to push thousands of providers to the point of bankruptcy — limiting patients’ access to home care and forcing them into costlier care options. Yet the need for home care will only increase as the 78 million baby boomers turn 65 at the rate of 10,000 per day for the next 19 years. Home care is the option that the vast majority of boomers will demand because it helps patients stay independent and keeps families together. Home care is also far more cost-effective for Medicare than institutional options — saving the program tens of billions of dollars every year.